Eur. Phys. J. A (2023) 59: 273
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-023-01181-7

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Effective field theory analysis of the Coulomb breakup of the one-neutron halo nucleus C

¹ Institut für Kernphysik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099, Mainz, Germany
² Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, 45701, Athens, OH, USA
³ Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, 27695-8202, Raleigh, NC, USA
⁴ Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University Of Jerusalem, 9190401, Jerusalem, Israel
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14395-547, Tehran, Iran
⁶ PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099, Mainz, Germany
⁷ Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University, 53115, Bonn, Germany
⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento, 38123, Trento, Italy
⁹ INFN-TIFPA Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications, 38123, Trento, Italy
¹⁰ Physique Nucléaire et Physique Quantique (CP 229), Université libre de Bruxelles, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
¹¹ Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), CNRS/IN2P3, Université de Strasbourg, 67037, Strasbourg, France
¹² Physics Department, Technische Universität München, 85748, Garching, Germany
¹³ Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012, Seville, Spain
¹⁴ Department of Physics, University of Washington, 98195-1560, Seattle, WA, USA
¹⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, V8P 5C2, Victoria, BC, Canada
¹⁶ TRIUMF, V6T 2A3, Vancouver, BC, Canada
¹⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Notre Dame, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA
¹⁸ Institut für Kernphysik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany
¹⁹ Laboratoire de Physique des Deux Infinis Bordeaux (LP2I Bordeaux), Université de Bordeaux, CNRS/IN2P3, 33175, Gradignan cedex, France
²⁰ Department of Physics, The George Washington University, 20052, Washington, DC, USA
²¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, 52242, Iowa City, IA, USA
²² Department of Physics, Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), DCTA, 12228-900, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
²³ Galileo Galilei Institute, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), 50125, Florence, Italy
²⁴ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), 20018, Donostia-San Sebastiàn, Spain
²⁵ Institut für Theoretische Physik II, Ruhr-Universität, 44780, Bochum, Germany
²⁶ Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Göteborg, Sweden

^a pcapel@uni-mainz.de
^b phillid1@ohio.edu

Received: 7 February 2023
Accepted: 26 October 2023
Published online: 20 November 2023

Abstract

We analyse the Coulomb breakup of C measured at 67A MeV at RIKEN. We use the Coulomb-Corrected Eikonal (CCE) approximation to model the reaction and describe the one-neutron halo nucleus C within Halo Effective Field Theory (Halo EFT). At leading order we obtain a fair reproduction of the measured cross section as a function of energy and angle. The description is insensitive to the choice of optical potential, as long as it accurately represents the size of C. It is also insensitive to the interior of the C wave function. Comparison between theory and experiment thus enables us to infer asymptotic properties of the ground state of C: these data put constraints on the one-neutron separation energy of this nucleus and, for a given binding energy, can be used to extract an asymptotic normalisation coefficient (ANC). These results are confirmed by CCE calculations employing next-to-leading order Halo EFT descriptions of C: at this order the results for the Coulomb breakup cross section are completely insensitive to the choice of the regulator. Accordingly, this reaction can be used to constrain the one-neutron separation energy and ANC of C.